The Existence Of Matter

Does matter exist?

Is there a table which has a certain intrinsic nature, and continues to exist when I am not looking?

Or is the table merely a product of my imagination, a dream-table in a very prolonged dream?

This question is of the greatest importance.

If we cannot be sure of the independent existence of objects, we cannot be sure of the independent existence of other people’s bodies, and therefore still less of other people’s minds, since we have no grounds for believing in their minds except such as are derived from observing their bodies.

Thus, if we cannot be sure of the independent existence of objects, we shall be left alone in a desert—it may be that the whole outer world is nothing but a dream, and that we alone exist. This is an uncomfortable possibility; but although it cannot be strictly proved to be false, there is not the slightest reason to suppose that it is true.

Although we are doubting the physical existence of the table, we are not doubting the existence of the sense-data which made us think there was a table. We are not doubting that, while we look, a certain colour and shape appear to us, and while we press, a certain sensation of hardness is experienced by us.

All this, which is psychological, we are not calling in question. In fact, whatever else may be doubtful, some at least of our immediate experiences seem absolutely certain.

Descartes (1596-1650) is the founder of modern philosophy. He invented a method which we can still use—the method of systematic doubt.

He determined that he would believe nothing which he did not see quite clearly and distinctly to be true. Whatever he could doubt, he would doubt, until he saw reason for not doubting it.

This method convinced him that the only existence of he could be sure of was his own. He imagined a deceitful demon who presented unreal things to his senses in a perpetual phantasmagoria. It might be very improbable that such a demon existed, But still it was possible. Therefore, doubt concerning things perceived by the senses was possible.

But doubt on his own existence was not possible. If he did not exist, no demon could deceive him.

If he doubted, he must exist; if he had any experiences whatever, he must exist.

Thus his own existence was an absolute certainty to him.

‘I think, therefore I am,’ he said (Cogito, ergo sum)*.

*Superphysics note: The underlying purpose for this maxim was to explain that all existing things are thinking and therefore have a mind. When a metal expands or melts when heated, it is proof that the metal thought to react and expand or melt. But materialists never think this way. Instead they use Cogito ergo sum to promote the ego and doubt existence.

On the basis of this certainty, he rebuilt the world of knowledge which his doubt destroyed*.

*Superphysics note: Descartes rebuilt knowledge from the point of view of God or the Creator.

Descartes performed a great service to philosophy when he:

• invented the method of doubt
• showed that subjective things are the most certain

These make him still useful to all students of philosophy.

Russel’s Corruption of Descartes

But some care is needed in using Descartes’ argument.

‘I think, therefore I am’ says rather more than is strictly certain.

We might seem sure that we are the same person today as we were yesterday. But the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table. The real Self does not have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences.

When I see my table, it is certain that ‘a brown colour is being seen’. It is not certain that ‘I am seeing a brown colour’.

This of course involves something (or somebody) which (or who) sees the brown colour; but it does not of itself involve that more or less permanent person whom we call ‘I’.

So far as immediate certainty goes, it might be that the something which sees the brown colour is quite momentary, and not the same as the something which has some different experience the next moment.

Thus it is our particular thoughts and feelings that have primitive certainty.

This applies to dreams and hallucinations as well as to normal perceptions. When we dream or see a ghost, we have the sensations that we think we have. But no physical object corresponds to these sensations.

Thus, the certainty of our knowledge of our own experiences does not have to be limited in any way to allow for exceptional cases.

This gives us a solid basis from which to begin our pursuit of knowledge.

Our own sense-data is certain. But have we any reason to regard them as signs of the existence of the physical object?

When we have enumerated all the sense-data connected with the table, have we said all there is to say about the table? Or is there still something else—something not a sense-datum, which persists when we go out of the room?

Common sense answers that there is.

What can be bought and sold and pushed about and have a cloth laid on it, and so on, cannot be a mere collection of sense-data.

If the cloth completely hides the table, we derive no sense-data from the table. Therefore, if the table were merely sense-data, then it would have ceased to exist.

The cloth would be suspended in empty air, resting, by a miracle, in the place where the table formerly was.

This seems plainly absurd. But whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

One great reason why it is felt that we must secure a physical object in addition to the sense-data, is that we want the same object for different people.

When ten people are sitting round a dinner-table, it seems preposterous to maintain that they are not seeing the same tablecloth, the same knives and forks and spoons and glasses. But the sense-data are private to each separate person.

What is immediately present to the sight of one is not immediately present to the sight of another: they all see things from slightly different points of view, and therefore see them slightly differently.

Thus, if there are to be public neutral objects, which can be in some sense known to many different people, there must be something over and above the private and particular sense-data which appear to various people. What reason, then, have we for believing that there are such public neutral objects?

The first answer that naturally occurs to one is that, although different people may see the table slightly differently, still they all see more or less similar things when they look at the table, and the variations in what they see follow the laws of perspective and reflection of light, so that it is easy to arrive at a permanent object underlying all the different people’s sense-data.

I bought my table from the former occupant of my room; I could not buy his sense-data, which died when he went away, but I could and did buy the confident expectation of more or less similar sense-data. Thus it is the fact that different people have similar sense-data, and that one person in a given place at different times has similar sense-data, which makes us suppose that over and above the sense-data there is a permanent public object which underlies or causes the sense-data of various people at various times.